Barbwire: Judge tenderly

BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO
Pirate Laureate of the High Desert Outback of the American Dream
The Barbwire Molly Ivins Memorial Columniator Hall of Flames

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Je Suis Charlie
"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together." — Joseph Pulitzer

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Andrew Barbano Editor/Publisher
Photo: Debra Reid, Sparks Tribune

   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
   Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
   Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
   That's how it goes. Everybody knows...
Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows...
   Everybody talking to their pockets.
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
   and a long red rose.
   Everybody knows. Everybody knows.
That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

— Leonard Cohen, 1934-2016

By Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) & Sharon Robinson
© 1988 CBS Records, Inc.

I hope you understand I just had to go back to the island.
— Leon Russell, 1942-2016

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005
Remember her laughter

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023

UPDATE: WORLDWIDE LEADER? ACT OF GOD OR JUST A GARDEN-VARIETY IMPOSSIBLE DREAMER? ALL OF THE ABOVE? VERY POSSIBLY. Was Andrew Barbano the only advocate for an American pope? Google apparently says YES! At minimum, the Barbwire stumped and broke Google trying to find out. See for yourself. And please lemme know what you think.

Big news. Prayers answered: Pope takes on T-Rump head-to-head.

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2024 Barbwire Winners!

Jake Highton & Guy Louis Rocha 2024 honorees BUENO!

Barbwire nominee Dennis Myers elected to NPA Hall of Fame (2019)

WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH —> BARBWIRE NOMINEE GUY RICHARDSON INDUCTED INTO HALL OF FAME ON FIRST BALLOT (2012)

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The Dean's List

The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.

RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006

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Judge not or judge tenderly
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-25-2026 / UPDATED 3-1-2026 / Expansions in blue

This is my letter to the world
That never wrote to me
The simple news
That nature told
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see.
For love of her,
Sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me.
— Emily Dickinson

For most of my life, I have carried those sweet words from the Belle of Amherst with me.

In times of trouble, like these, people look to poets and artists to channel spirits of soothing balm for the tortured and abused. And maybe sow a sprig of hope for springtime.

Recent springtimes have borne bitter black blossomings of strongmen and dictators. We, the lessers of our gold-plated betters, try to keep hope alive as the greedy glom and grovel for more and more that glitters.

They little realize that glitter dwindles to dying twinkles in darkness.

They step on the weak and demonize "the other" to instill fear and loathing.

Herewith, a personal letter to them from long, long ago.

"The Stranger's Case," Act II, Scene 4 of "Sir Thomas More"

You’ll put down strangers,
grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
hath (chided) down all the majesty of England.
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
and that you sit as kings in your desires,
authority quite silent by your brawl,
and you in ruff of your opinions clothed.
What had you got?

I’ll tell you: you had taught how insolence and strong hand should prevail,
how order should be quelled; and by this pattern
not one of you should live an agèd man,
for other ruffians, as their fancies wrought with self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
would feed on one another.

Say now the king,
as he is clement if th’offender mourn,
should so much come too short of your great trespass
as but to banish you, whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
should give you harbor?

Go you to France or Flanders,
to any German province, to Spain or Portugal — Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England,
why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased to find a nation of such barbarous temper that, breaking out in hideous violence,
would not afford you an abode on earth,
whet their detested knives against your throats,
spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
owed not nor made not you, nor that the elements
were not all appropriate to your comforts,
but chartered unto them, what would you think
to be thus used?

This is the strangers’ case.
And this your mountainish inhumanity.

Amen, brother.

FAST-FORWARD TO STEPHEN COLBERT. The above is "The Strangers’ Case" monologue, William Shakespeare's contribution to the 1590s play "Thomas More."

The Folger Shakespeare Library at Amherst College sets the scene: "(A) riot that the play references took place on May 1, 1517 and is referred to as Evil May Day. Thomas More, then under-sheriff of London, was sent to calm the rioters and persuade them to go home. According to the chronicler Edward Hall (c. 1498–1547), a fortnight before the riot, an inflammatory xenophobic speech was made on Easter Tuesday by a preacher known as 'Dr. Bell' at St. Paul’s Cross at the instigation of John Lincoln, a broker. Bell accused immigrants of stealing jobs from English workers and of 'eat[ing] the bread from poor fatherless children.' ”

It's but a small jump to Mad King T-Rump's insane 2024 accusation that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating cats and dogs. The desperate elected him anyway.

Blaming the other — the traveler, the immigrant, the dark-skinned, the funny-talking — for the ills of society is a tried and true trope of soul-less dictators. There's always a threat and only the god-king can protect little ole you.

Sir Ian McKellen (aka "Gandalf" and "Magneto" to fantasy film fans) recited the above indictment on Stephen Colbert's T-Rump-cancelled late night show this month. It re-ran last Friday. You can see his astounding performance all over the Internet.

I reprint it here because the Tribune will be on the press as President Bulsha Tartist takes the stage in the well of the House of Representatives to face off with the black robes he once called "my justices."

I won't watch. I've seen that movie many times. We would all be better off watching "A Man for All Seasons," the Oscar-winning 1966 film about St. Thomas More which not only won best picture but best actor for Paul Scofield.

"Sir Thomas More was the 16th-century Lord Chancellor of England who refused both to sign a letter asking Pope Clement VII to annul Henry VIII of England's marriage to Catherine of Aragon and to take an Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church of England." (Wikipedia)

He was executed by his era's mad king and in 1935 canonized a saint by the Catholic Church as the patron saint of statesmen and politicians.

These days, we could do with a few more patron saints and the supply of candidates expands. T-Rump has threatened execution to dozens of those who dare oppose his wonderfulness.

Three U.S. citizens lie dead in the streets of Minnesota and Texas as his lowdown payment.

Get the latest boosters, protect yourself and your family by masking up, continue praying for the oppressed, unenlightened and unvaccinated as well as Popes Leo and Francis, the Dalai Lama, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Venezuela,Yemen and the world's more than 160 currently war-torn lands, including ours.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)
être bien, élever l'enfer (Pardon my French.) Stammi bene. Scatenare l'inferno. (And Italian.)

Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 57-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com, SenJoeNeal.org, DoctorLawyerWatch.com, BallotBoxing.US,ConsumerCoalitionv.org,ChantalCoalition.org, Rentvolution.org, MississippiWestNV.org and CesarChavezNevada.com among others. He is a longtime member and former vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP and a member Sparks-based Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO. He is a former member of LV Culinary 226 and Fresno Culinary Local 62. As always, his comments are entirely his own. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Sparks Tribune since August 12, 1988. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into the César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

Melt ICE —> Mask up!
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-18-2026

We don't need no stinking badges!
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 2-4-2026

What if you knew them and found them dead on the ground?
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-28-2026

War is peace, right?
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-21-2026 / UPDATED 1-22-2026 / Expansions in blue

Is the light breaking through at last?
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-14-2026 / UPDATED 1-15-2026 / Expansions in blue

Venezuela is Spanish for Vietnam
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-7-2026/ UPDATED 1-9-2026 / Expansions in blue

The 2025 Barbwire Blue-footed Booby Prizes
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno/ Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 12-31-2025/
UPDATED 1-1 & 1-2-2026 / Expansions in blue

The Blue-footed Booby Awards are judged by a committee even more exclusive than the Nobel Prizes. Namely, me.

Let it Be: An American Pope Francis2
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-23-2025, uploaded 4-22-2025

Pinky & the Brain taking over the world
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-2-2025

Ain't we a pair?
Dennis Myers & Andrew Barbano inducted into César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 4-10-2024

Betty J. Barbano
2-7-1941 / 12-27-2005
Remember her laughter

On January 16, 1959, two babies were born.
They became sisters in both life and death.

Larry Barbano, Frater Mei
12-18-1947 / 10-18-2023

To Die For
My daughters were born 65 years ago yesterday. Alas, their youth was cut in twain.
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 1-17-2024

Web Xtras & Smoking Guns—>

Why the science is clear that masks work
By Zeynep Tufecki / The New York Times / 3-10-2023

Breaking News —> Masks work!

And the plague is rampant once again. Be very afraid.

Trump Victory Would Be a Public Health Disaster
By Whistleblower Rick Bright/New York Times/10-10-2024

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For all the news you never knew you needed to know 'til now: Tell your friends and friendly enemies to subscribe to Barbwire Confidential for warm laughter, cheap thrills, hot scoops and occasional cold logic at BallotBoxing.US/ Cheap at twice the price. (Hush Hush!)

Barbwire dark foreshadowings unfortunately have a way of becoming reality. I thus suggest inoculation by signing onto the HushHush! list at BallotBoxing.US/ It's cheap as well as enlightening entertainment. Thank you kindly for your support.

$75 dead or alive: Still crazy after all these years
A mass murderer becomes famous on TV a century later
How come nobody noticed 'til now?
Barbwire by Andrew Barbáno / Expanded from the 2-21-2018 Sparks Tribune

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners Max Blank and Isaac Harris. Is not Mr. Harris eerily familiar to television junkies?

From the Emmy-winning opening slate of the blockbuster "Cheers" television series. Combined with its "Frasier" spinoff, it lasted 20 years.

The "shirtwaist kings" immigrated from Russia and made a fortune manufacturing "Gibson Girl"-style blouses. (Photo, "The American Experience"/PBS)

The Emmy-winning opening slate of the "Cheers" television series before the "slate" of creators is superimposed. Looks like Mr. Harris' dead ringer (at left) is having a bloody good time.

"Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" — Chico Marx disguised as Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)
Back to the story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist holocaust

Triangle tragedy recalled as requiem
"The Fire in My Mouth," a new oratorio by Pulitzer honoree Julia Wolfe, premiered with the New York Philharmonic Jan. 24
By Michael Cooper / The New York Times 1-23-2019

Wasting workers where everybody knows your name
Barbwire by Andrew Quarantino Barbáno / Expanded from the Sparks Tribune 10-18-2023

Andrew Barbano is a 57-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and SenJoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He was the longtime executive producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and has been a quarter-century member and 10- year officer of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

The Northern Nevada Central Labor Council/AFL-CIO inducted him into César Chávez Nevada Labor Hall of Fame on April 5, 2024.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since. His first byline in the paper came in 1973.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

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